As an avowed atheist living among a sea of believers (both locally and on the Internet), I have spent a lot of time discussing my beliefs (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The purpose of this blog is not to prove the non-existence of God or "de-convert" anybody from their faith, but simply to preserve some of these discussions and allow me to flesh them out through the process of writing them down, as well as to share them with anybody who might be interested in reading them.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

In just about every debate regarding the existence of God, the opposing sides are usually theists (those who believe in God) and atheists
(those who do not believe in God). Similarly, here on Quora, theists of
all stripes typically post questions directed at “atheists” (or
“agnostics,” under the mistaken belief, apparently, that an atheist is
somebody who claims to know that God doesn’t exist while an agnostic
merely is unsure). As a result, the issue in question is usually framed
in terms of “There is a God” (or, perhaps, “It is rational to believe in
God”) vs. “There is no God” (or, perhaps, “It is not rational to
believe in God”).

However, this presumption that the issue is always (or even primarily)
between theists and atheists involve a massive amount of hubris on the
part of the theists. It requires the theist to assume as an absolute
given that their particular concept of God, among all the many
thousands of concepts of God throughout all of human history (including
the many thousands of concepts of God held by religious people of all
stripes in the world today) is the only concept of God worth
discussing. When a Christian asks a question about why atheists don’t
believe in “God,” or when a Muslim or a Hindu sets out to prove the
existence of “God,” they don’t even bother to define the properties of
the God they are discussing. For that matter, when a Baptist or a Born
Again Christian or a Catholic or member of any other Christian
denomination sets out to prove the existence of “God,” they never ever
acknowledge that their understanding of God may be unique to their
particular denomination of Christianity, let alone to Christianity in
general. It’s always, “I know that [my] God exists, why can’t you
atheists agree with me?”

This is, of course,
why many atheists respond to questions posted by theists by first
asking, “Which God?” And this seems to annoy many theists, who just
can't seem to grasp the idea that there are billions of other people who
have a different understanding of God (or gods) and who are just as
sincere in their beliefs. “Obviously,” these theists seem to be saying,
“all of those beliefs are just ignorant superstitions. We’re talking about my
God who, unique in all of human history, just happens to be real.” Did I
mention the hubris involved in such an assumption? Devout Christians
are just as convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Jews are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Muslims are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Hindus are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Zoroastrians are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, etc., and within each major religion the numerous sects are all equally convinced that their concept of God is the right one and that everybody else has got it wrong.

So,
yes, it would be nice if theists would specify exactly what sort of
“God” they are talking about when asking questions or attempting to make
arguments about “God” instead of just assuming that (a) everybody knows
what their concept of God is and (b) their concept of God
is the only one worth discussing. And then, rather than framing the
debate as a discussion as to whether “there is a God” (the theist side)
or “there isn’t a God” (the atheist side), the theists should be forced
to acknowledge that what they are really arguing for is the
proposition, “My personal concept of God is the correct one and every
other concept of God ever held throughout the entire history of
humanity, including the belief that there is no God, is wrong.” And then
they should be forced to defend that proposition instead of just
using the same tired “logical” arguments to “prove” the existence of
some sort of nebulous “creator” that applies equally well to most of the
concepts of God worshiped by various religions.